2014 Frugal Living Challenge

nannygladys

Hello everyone

Had a good day so far. Renewed car insurance for 200 pounds less and paid on cc so need to work a couple of days to finish paying for it, I've written a couple of letters to friends, done a bit of gardening and cleaned my go out, so I'm feeling positive so far
Nanny g

tatabubbly

Hey all! Had a NSD today! yays!
Only money spent was travel and I don't include that as I get paid for it..

Tomorrow should hopefully be the same as well Not planning on doing much this weekend so hoping I can keep the pennies in my pocket and put a tiny bit away!

calleyw

his_missus wrote: »

The bathroom leak was fixed by FIL with a £5 pipe yesterday but now I need someone to look at my boiler as the pressure's dropped and I can't find a tap/valve to turn to increase it We have hot water but no heating! I usually only have it set to 16C anyway but last night the temperature in our house dropped to 11, brr!!!.

Is it a combi boiler? If so look at the manual or on-line. Or take a photo of the boiler and post it on the DIY board someone will be able to help you

I know where my filling loop is and on the very odd occasion have to top it up

Yours

Calley

InClover

hooray!!!! payday and I still have money left in my bank, hope I do even better in February as it's a short month. :-)

millionaire_in_training

Well I have just did the sums for January. I have overspent by £288.33 :eek:. I have tried really hard. Or so I thought. I had kept a spending diary and when I went back through it there are £153.50 in totally unnecessary spends i.e. lunches ( when I could have taken lunch with me) junk food ( no excuse) nights out ( could have taken car and drastically cut costs). I also miscalculated the days DS was at school.

So I have done the budget for next month. I'm not even going to try and claw back what I have overspent as I have set a pretty tight budget so there's not much wriggle room. TBH if I get to the end of the year and I managing to get by on the budget I have set then I will feel triumphant :rotfl: I am in the meantime looking at things as a work in progress and I will try again in Feb to get as close as I can to my budget and go from there. xx

alja

Florenceem wrote: »

Of course you should contact them - look for an email addy or freephone number so it doesn't cost you. I have had out of date vouchers replaced - tell them - it is good customer service to do so.

Agreed, especially when it is a big company! It's a drop in the ocean for them compared to small companies, so I'm sure they can afford to replace them for you and ensure they're back in your good books as a company!

afoolwithmoney

Cant believe it end of month & a little spare cash! Thank you everyone for sharing your ups, downs & fabulous tips....February bring it on

skintygerlinky

Evening Frugalites xx

Wahey it's nearly the end of the month!! Interesting to read over everyone's reflections. I hope we aren't giving ourselves too hard a time - maybe January was the 'test the water' month, a chance to emerge after Xmas and see what we were left with!!
I know that for my own finances, February will be a good month to test out a realistic monthly budget (shorter month too! Makes me feel better!!) and by March I will know if it's 'do-able' or if I need to cut back further. I'm in it for the long haul folks!!

I'm off work tomorrow and had arranged to meet up with an old friend. However the weather looks horrific so maybe this will be on hold. Or maybe I can persuade her to stay in and we can catch up in her house instead of going into town and having a Costa Lotta coffee!!

Just_be_2

I feel like I've achieved good things this month- I am concious that I had two blips with the debit card (have a cash only strategy which is really working on the whole!). I will avoid taking my debit card out with me from now on. I'm actually amazed I didn't have more card blips seeing as its been sitting in my purse all month- proud of my self control on the grand scheme of things- but CANNOT afford to splurge in the future. January has been a 'test the water' month. Quite pleased with the results

abby1234519

Florenceem wrote: »

Of course you should contact them - look for an email addy or freephone number so it doesn't cost you. I have had out of date vouchers replaced - tell them - it is good customer service to do so.

I will do that.

I also plan to send some letters to Weetabix and a few other companies that my other half likes, see what vouchers I can get!

I spent January gearing up for being frugal. I haven't been that frugal, I have been cutting down on the spending and as of tomorrow we are fully prepared.
My other half has been shown what he can't have ie he can't go buying packets of biscuits and snacks because he spends a lot of money on junk. He gets me down a lot because we will go shopping and I will have a shopping list and as we walk around Lidl he will go, can I have some snacks, can I have some chocolate yoghurt, can I have some milkshake. He is worse than a kid. He is worse because he does it with a grin and he knows I am trying to cut down. I feel like he is taking the mick. However I really want to pay off our debt in 3 years so that we can start saving for a house. By being frugal I could shave months off this.
I do have things I need to make decisions on, for instance we have Netflix which yes is only something like £6 a month but do we need it? I would argue we do as it saves us money on the cinema etc. We don't go to the cinema unless I have nectar points which isn't often. But it means we don't need to buy DVDs etc. We do have Tivo but we signed up for that not so long ago and I think its £26 a month in total. I can't really do anything about that and to be honest, whilst it is probably a superfluous expenditure to some people, it keeps me happy!! I can happily stay in and watch television rather than doing the typical 20something thing of buying a bottle of alcohol and going to a friends etc.I'm much happier staying at home but I wouldn't be if I didn't have anything to watch. Also TiVo has youtube built in which means I can workout to FitnessBlender so that in a way saves a gym membership and also exercise dvds. We also both have nice phones so that costs us about £65 but similarly when we both downgraded to "normal" phones we were miserable. So I am unfrugal in that aspect. If they last past the 24 months I won't get us new phones we will just have to put up with them. They are good phones anyway so hopefully.
Its difficult for us because our only expenditure should be food, we have bills etc but I don't budget for entertainment and so forth. My mother in law to be has a thing about family birthdays where she makes us go out for EVERY family members birthday and it always ends up costing us £40 a pop because there is a large amount of people, birthday person goes free and they split the bill equally. So oh and I have a small meal each, we share our food with our son as he doesn't eat much and we have a couple of cokes. Meanwhile people get a few beers, there are two people who drink like a fish which makes our bill rocket. Now mother in law did take on board what I said and she always pays about a tenner of ours because I did make a fuss. I'm not being mean spirited but I've told her I don't want to go if we split the bill like that. In fact I don't see it necessary to go for everyones birthday. In fact this year I am making a point of not doing anything for mine, not that we ever do I think they all forget its my birthday. My other half isn't buying me a present because I don't want one and it comes out of our money. I've told him he can get me a card and a small bunch of flowers. I really really don't care that its my birthday, I'm only going to be 25!
I earn 19k and he earns 16k so we don't earn that much anyway. Most of our money is ploughed into debt, I then have £22 water bill £90ish energy (although I wish I could reduce that) and then Tivo phones etc. Once all that and childcare is done with we don't have anything left.